Local Filmmaker Serves up a 'Sushi' Feast for the Senses

Watching a diner’s eyes glaze over as they tuck into toro, hirame, or aji, it’s clear that sushi inspires a uniquely fervent passion among its devotees. True connoisseurs journey across the globe for a seat in a tiny, underground restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

Sukiyabashi Jiro, the first sushi bar in the world to be awarded three Michelin stars, is also home to the rarefied world’s greatest star, Jiro Ono. It serves as the setting for a fascinating new documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which opens Friday at the Smith Rafael Film Center.

Edited by San Rafael filmmaker Brandon Driscoll-Luttringer, Jiro takes viewers inside the kitchen of one of the world’s great chefs, a master of the art of sushi who, as the title indicates, spends even his non-waking hours thinking about new and exciting ways to serve his raw fish delicacies.

For Driscoll-Luttringer, a St. Mark’s and Marin Catholic alumni, the film’s genesis can be traced all the way back to his freshman year at USC Film School, where he was assigned David Gelb (the film’s director) as a roommate. A lifelong sushi lover, Gelb introduced his new friend to his favorite food, and as the years went by, both men knew they were destined to make a sushi film together.

While in pre-production on the film, initially conceived as a broad documentary about different sushi chefs, the name Jiro Ono kept coming up as the ultimate representative of this unique discipline. (The colorful food writer and TV host Anthony Bourdain declared his meal there “the best sushi of my life.”) Once Gelb himself was able to visit Sukiyabashi Jiro, located in the cellar of an otherwise unremarkable office building, it became clear that Jiro would be the sole subject of the film.

“Every chef that we talked to would talk about Jiro,” Driscoll-Luttringer recalls. “He’s really trying to keep the old, classical ways alive.”

A huge star in his native Japan, Jiro allowed Gelb incredible access during the director’s three visits to Japan. While Gelb worked to captured Jiro’s magic on film, Driscoll-Luttringer remained in Los Angeles, editing the material as quickly as Gelb could get it back to him, though he says after working with the hundreds of hours of footage, “I feel like I’ve eaten every bite that was on film.”

Indeed, anyone looking for a little spot of food porn will swoon over the lovingly photographed slices of ebi, the quivering toro and teeming scenes from the world-famous Tsukiji fish market, all set to the haunting strains of Philip Glass, whose music the filmmakers chose because like Jiro’s practice, “it’s repetitive, but also constantly elevating itself.”

As they progressed with shooting and editing the film, Driscoll-Luttringer and Gelb realized that not only did they have spectacular footage of Jiro and his restaurant, they also had on their hands a compelling family drama that would make the story relatable even to non-sushi fans.

In the editing room, Driscoll-Luttringer says, he experienced what he calls “an ‘a-ha’ moment, where I realized this wasn’t a ‘sushi movie’ but rather a movie about a father-son relationship where sushi is the setting.”

For the filmmakers, this passion project has been “a dream come true.” A world premiere at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival in February 2011 was followed two months later by a U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it was one of the first films sold to a distributor. A nationwide theatrical release is currently underway, with international territories also in the mix. Gelb and Driscoll-Luttringer have been invited it to screen the film for the Japan Society in New York, at a food festival in Poland, and closer to home, at the Google campus here in the Bay Area.

Saturday night’s screening will be a hometown premiere of sorts for Driscoll-Luttringer, who along with Gelb also runs a creative agency in Los Angeles that works on trailers and key art for films. He’ll have multiple family members in the audience. He says he looks forward to dedicating the screening to a recently deceased grandmother.

And what of Jiro’s sushi? Will he finally get to have his own omakase meal at Jiro’s famous counter?

“Absolutely!” he says. Once the whirlwind promotion for the film winds down, Driscoll-Luttringer hopes to make a pilgrimage to Tokyo, not only to sample Jiro’s dazzling food, but also to deliver his personal thanks to a man whose discipline and passion for his art inspired this young filmmaker in his own.

The 411: Jiro Dreams of Sushi opens Friday at the Smith Rafael Film Center. Brandon Driscoll-Luttringer and David Gelb appear at Saturday night's screening at 7:30 p.m. Go to the theater's website for more info or to buy tickets.